Two, I’m easily distracted by widows and orphans. Inspiration, not procrastination, all right?) Even on the smaller screen of my laptop, this gives me plenty of room to work comfortably. When I’m working on my own writing, I like to keep the browser open so I can easily look up words or do some research or view images. I usually work at 150% zoom with a fairly narrow window width. I keep multiple programs open and viewable so I can quickly switch programs or keep an eye on email or compare one doc against another.

It’s highly effective for several reasons. You wouldn’t think something so simple as switching views could increase productivity or make writing easier. Considering 99% of the docs I process are for digital sharing or for formatting in other programs, that’s not very often.)

(The only time I use Print Layout is when I’m creating a doc for printing. The latest version has icons for switching between Read, Print and Web Layout. Word also has a scroll bar at the bottom right of the main screen for quick zooming in and out.

Here you can increase or decrease the size of the text, or change to multiple pages. Web Layout has no margins and no pages.Īlso in the Views Ribbon is the command box for Zoom. Decreasing the size of the window causes the words to rewrap and adjust to fit the screen-as opposed to Print Layout where decreasing the window can cause text to be cut off. In Web Layout view you are not limited by the “page” size of your document (Word’s default is an 8.5” by 11” page with one inch margins all around). Click Web Layout and now your screen acts similar to a scalable website page.

Your choices are Read Mode, Print Layout and Web Layout along with Outline and Draft. Click on that then over on the left side of the Ribbon is the command box for Views. Whether I’m writing or processing a client’s Word doc for editing or formatting, I work in Web Layout View. There’s a simple trick I’ve learned that makes my job easier.

Change layout of one page in word